


if my heart was a house

by sightstone (symmetrophobic)



Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9922082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetrophobic/pseuds/sightstone
Summary: in which one is lost, and the other can only light the way back home.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oathsworn (onelastchence)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onelastchence/gifts).



> to my oathsworn, happy birthday ;;

“What’s this?” Bumhyeon calls from the kitchen.

There’s something about the way he doesn’t so much call out as he thinks out loud, a tentative question mark that hangs in the air, half to himself.

The house is quiet, for once, and no one thinks twice about it. Youngjun does turn by a fraction, and Boseong plucks out an earbud, momentary confusion flashing over his face, before going back to his game.

Jongin pads through the kitchen in his socks to get to the sink, passing Bumhyeon, who’s still looking at the pack of pancake mix carefully placed on the counter as he pours some water for himself. It’s some generic household brand, the cartoon of a happy chef with noodle arms holding a plate of pancakes, butter and maple syrup and all, on the cover.

“Did you buy this, hyung?” Bumhyeon asks conversationally, as he picks the packet up, turning it over.

“Mm?” Jongin says, unconcerned, as he splashes some water on his face. It’s freezing, especially in this weather, despite the heating, and his face stings when he blinks and looks up.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bumhyeon tiptoe, reaching up to open the cupboard and shelve the mix.

“People shouldn’t leave their stuff lying around,” the support says, before picking his mug up and leaving the kitchen.

Jongin makes an indistinct noise, and douses his face in another round of cold water.

*

People are flimsy, temporary little things; friends even more so, and Jongin is no stranger to the concept.

He supposes he should be grateful their job makes it easy for them all to still talk to each other, but somehow this just makes him feel worse. Otherwise, it’s weeks buried under weeks of five hours of sleep and cold dinners in quiet rooms, while Jongin runs on excuses to speak to as few people as possible.

Eleven hours into the fourth of a two-week cycle finds him trawling through a night of soloqueue on stream, making cursory but mostly failed attempts to fix his hair. Bumhyeon’s wearing an assortment of scarves beside him, complaining about the cold, and Jongin’s quite sure one of those are his.

He gets a comment asking him if he still keeps up with the old ROX members, and it catches him off guard for a split second. There’d been a load of those when they’d just started out, but eventually those had petered out when people got the idea that things were right and well. The message gets buried, and Jongin doesn’t bother replying.

They still talk, sure. They talk the way every team does when members come and go, with a frequency that ebbs into oblivion over time. Sure, there’s still a special place in the museum of Jongin’s mind carved out for the people that once made his heart home, a tightly boarded up house he now lives alone in and dusts occasionally, as if it’ll be habited again one day.

From a distance away, Youngjun cackles- he’s skyping Donghyun again, probably. He doesn’t do it now as often as he used to, Jongin notes. Probably because the other boy’s getting accustomed to the time zone in America.

“Postage is expensive,” the midlaner argues, executing a series of clicks, probably in a game. “Why did you have to move so far away?”

Jongin knows what they’re talking about- he’d glanced at the tabs open on Youngjun’s monitor with tables listing postage fees, seen the clumsily wrapped envelopes stuffed with silly animal print face masks on their midlaner’s table.

There’s a pause as Jongin pretends not to listen, and Youngjun’s ex-AD carry gives a response he can’t hear.

“It’s okay,” Youngjun replies, then, half shrugging, as if Donghyun can see. “I’ll keep sending them. They’re more expensive in America,” he pauses, for a lull in the conversation even Jongin can hear. “How are the rest doing?”

They’d had a night to drink, all of them, and Youngjun had told a very curious audience of Boseong and Dongwoo, both clutching their sodas, what the Chinese LSPL had been like during his time there. Jongin can’t say he wasn’t interested himself, and his expectations had been met- it wasn’t someplace he felt like going to anytime soon.

It’s difficult to remember that Youngjun, with his bright eyes and candid selfies and eager mannerisms, had been through that once, or anything at all. Jongin realises some people, like himself, have spines of rock and bone, impervious to the worst, and some people have spines of rubber, taking the brunt of the impact with a smile and bouncing back.

He turns, pulling out an earbud to head for the toilet, and sees Bumhyeon’s head snap back to face his screen out of the corner of his eye, cheeks a little flushed.

It’s four in the morning when they retire, and Jongin’s arm brushes against his support’s in the semi-darkness- Bontaek had gone to sleep some time ago.

“I suppose we’re lucky,” Bumhyeon says in half a whisper as he folds his clothes, casually picking up from where they left off in a conversation they never had. It’s a botlane thing, Jongin supposes, that he understands. “Other than Sungminnie, it’s like they never left.”

Jongin’s elbow bumps against the other boy’s shoulder as he tugs out the drawer, looking for a pair of socks- it’s dim with just the living room light, but he can see well enough.

“Yeah,” he echoes, voice low, giving a mirthless laugh. “Lucky.”

Bumhyeon pauses, silhouette etched in the darkness like a shadow on cloth, and Jongin resists the urge to take it back, or lay a hand on his shoulder. He compensates by clearing his throat loud enough for Bontaek to stir, and the other boy shakes out of it, clutching a set of clothes to his chest, like a shield, as he leaves the room.

Jongin watches his frame shrink, then disappear silently behind a corner, and stands alone in the darkness for a while. Then he walks over to push the door shut, leaving just a crack so light shines through like a blade, one that cuts his feet as he walks over it to get to his bed.

*

(He waits a patient few days before opening the kitchen cupboard when Bumhyeon’s showering. The pancake mix is still there, unopened, when he takes it down to check.

Then Boseong and Dongwoo barge into the kitchen on the hunt for snacks, and Jongin closes the cupboard before they can ask.)

*

It’s on a morning two weeks later that Jongin wakes up to a noise unnaturally early- judging by the sunlight it’s probably some ungodly hour in the morning. He stirs, rubbing an eye in annoyance, only to see Boseong, frozen outside the doorway.

 _Sorry hyung_ , he mouths, slightly terrified. _Please go back to sleep._

Jongin does, without much fanfare, but wakes up what feels like minutes later to an angry protest by his bladder.

Cursing the really great honey lemon tea Youngjun had introduced them all to last night, Jongin stumps wearily out of the room to the bathroom. It’s only on the way back that he notices Boseong seated at his monitor, headset on, worry lines worn into his youthful face.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks wearily, frowning reflexively in the sunlight. He _does_ remember their sub midlaner going to bed a little earlier last night, though.

Boseong jumps when spoken to, as most people do when still relatively unexposed to Jongin, and pulls his headset down to his neck, glancing at his monitor, eyes wide.

“Oh!” he says. There are dark circles under his eyes- Jongin wonders how much he’s been sleeping. “Mingi hyung’s playing in the NACS today!” he looks at the screen a little regretfully. “I don’t understand what they’re saying- I can’t access the stream. I could before, it’s just, now…” he looks sheepish. “Everything’s in English, and…”

Right- Jongin still needs some time getting used to the idea of _Madlife_ , of all people, playing in the North American Challenger Series.

“Something wrong with the internet?” Jongin doesn’t budge, at first- the thought of his warm bed and blankets is overwhelmingly inviting, but something about the look on the other boy’s face keeps him here.

“I don’t think so, it worked fine the last time, and just now,” Boseong looks increasingly upset. It’s a strange sight, even to Jongin- even Youngjun doesn’t watch all of Chanho’s and Donghyun’s matches now, claiming he was afraid just watching the NALCS matches would dilute his talent. (Jongin knows it’s because he just can’t wake up).

The AD carry walks over, resting a heavy hand on the back of Boseong’s chair as he leans over to take a look. His English isn’t the best, but it’s passable, and he navigates a couple of pages, before going back to the stream.

“They only stream alternate matches,” he says, yawning. “When game 1 is over, they’ll stream game 2- that’ll be in a while, I guess,” he straightens up. “You should probably get some sleep.”

“It’s okay, I’ll probably play a game while I wait,” Boseong says, noticeably happier. “Thanks hyung!”

Jongin hums indifferently in response, turning to head back to the room.

He wakes up three hours later to see Bumhyeon carrying an armful of blankets out of the room, the material trailing behind him. On Jongin’s second trip to the bathroom that morning, he sees a tuft of dark hair and eyes, closed in sound slumber, on the couch, the rest of the boy hidden by the blanket Bumhyeon’s laying over him.

It’s cute, mostly until Jongin emerges from the bathroom to find Dongwoo drawing on Boseong’s face with chocolate sauce, phone camera at the ready in his other hand. He’s about to laugh, but someone beats him to it, and his breath catches in his chest, windpipe knotting itself in anticipation.

The soft, doting sound dissipates into the air as swiftly as it had arrived, and Bumhyeon walks by, cuffing Dongwoo on the back of the head as he does. The jungler looks up, youthful face the perfect picture of mischief, and _then_ , right then, for that moment it feels like-…

…- like nothing had ever changed.

*

(This time, Jongin takes down the mix and stares at it with mild impatience, like he’s waiting for it to change before his eyes. He barely hears Youngjun enter the kitchen, so by the time the mix is back in the cupboard, Youngjun’s already tiptoeing beside him to take a look.

“Is that pancake mix, hyung?” he asks, relatively emboldened, probably from an ingame winning streak. “Whose is it?”

Jongin’s throat glues itself shut as he closes the cupboard door, turning to head off. Then, as if out of spite-…

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging.

And it’s true. For now, anyway.)

*

For the second morning in many days, Jongin finds himself waking up early again.

It’s not even _early_ , it’s just _really_ late- probably seven in the morning or something. But there’s a restlessness buried deep in Jongin’s chest that propels him out of bed into the living room, shuffling aimlessly, until he sees the main door half open.

“’Morning, hyung,” he says, without thinking much of it, settling heavily on the cramped bench outside, opposite Bontaek. “You’re being considerate.”

The toplaner makes an unconcerned sound over his cigarette. “I figured Bumhyeon not liking people smoking around the house wouldn’t change from our Najin days.”

It’s an uncomfortable position, Jongin knows, especially for someone like Bontaek, to be the bridge between two groups of people. They’d only known each other briefly during their days back on Najin, and Bontaek had only spent two seasons with the Longzhu roster before spring this year, but he was all they had to cement the relations between the rest of them and the organisation. He probably felt the weight of the responsibility, too, but instead of shrinking from it like Jongin had expected him to, he bore it, with a quiet, weary determination.

The toplaner slides open the little white box of cigarettes in his direction, and Jongin shakes his head. Bontaek takes another drag, looking at him with well-hidden surprise, then. “When’d you stop?”

“I didn’t,” Jongin shrugs. “I just- don’t feel like it. Haven’t in a while, I guess.”

There’s a silence, as Bontaek watches him, and Jongin wonders absently if Bumhyeon will object to the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes again.

The conversation shifts, and they talk for a bit about the scrims they have on later in the day, about recent patch changes. It just winds Jongin up further, though, thinking about an uncertain future he’d just set in stone for himself a few months ago, and maybe the toplaner feels that, because he changes tact.

“There’s a nice ramen place,” he says after a lull, gesturing carelessly behind him. “Few streets away. They give extra noodles if they recognise you,” he smiles. “Sake’s discounted too.”

“Sounds nice,” Jongin’s grateful for the breath of fresh air (metaphorical, considering Bontaek’s still smoking). “You could bring us there one day, hyung.”

“Dongwoo was good at talking to the ahjumma,” the older man says, a mildly reminiscent look in his eyes Jongin doesn’t see often. “He used to charm extra fried dumplings off her all the time. He’d say,” Bontaek sighs. “When he gets “super rich and famous”, he’ll come back and endorse her ramen, and everyone would come to try it.”

“Sounds embarrassing,” Jongin comments, and Bontaek rolls his eyes.

“You bet it was. The prices were a little on the high side, though, so we used to go there when we won, sometimes,” the toplaner says thoughtfully, before chuckling. “We didn’t get to go there much.”

Jongin pauses, not quite sure what to say. After all, he’d been responsible for a part of that. “We could do it now. This season,” he grins. “It’d be good incentive to win.”

Bontaek lets out a soft, barking laugh, tapping ash off the end of his cigarette into the drain outside their dorm.

There’s silence between them, for a while, before the eldest member speaks again, treading carefully. “You know, I was surprised,” he pauses respectfully here. “When you joined. There was talk you’d go overseas, and all.”

The younger man shrugs nonchalantly. “I did think about it.”

“Then again, there was also talk,” Bontaek continues, avoiding his eyes. “That Bumhyeon didn’t want to. Or couldn’t-…his health, they said. And no one would take him with his wrist problems.”

“You seem to trust a lot in what “they” say,” Jongin says, an involuntary edge to his voice, from the number of times he’s heard those questions. Then, because he wasn’t brought up in a barn, he adds, “Hyungnim.”

The toplaner watches him in silence for a while, cogs whirring like a blur behind his dark eyes, and Jongin’s uncomfortable for a split second, until he speaks again.

“Your joining,” Bontaek says, voice a cautious mix of curiosity and concern. “Is it true? Was it conditional?”

Jongin doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “No,” he shrugs again, looking away.

It’s _almost_ true- besides, they’d already been open to the idea of recruiting a bottom lane as a duo before he’d said anything. And anyway, it’s not like they would’ve taken anyone else with _GorillA_ as a free agent, he thinks, with a firm insistence.

Then the eldest member chuckles unexpectedly, shaking Jongin out of his thoughts, tapping his cigarette again before dropping it into the makeshift ashtray tied to the railing.

“Some things really don’t change,” Bontaek says leisurely, as he stretches, tucking the box and lighter back in his jacket pocket. Jongin wants to ask him what he means by that, but the toplaner’s already toeing off his shoes, disappearing back into the house.

Jongin ends up poking around in the kitchen till he finds something to eat, before automatically changing his shirt and going back to sleep, at least until Youngjun wakes up and knocks over an entire lampstand on his way to the bathroom.

*

(This time, Jongin opens the cupboard door and leaves it.

It takes about half an hour, but it’s Boseong who ends up going to the kitchen to get some water, plastic flask banging noisily against the sink. Then there’s a thoughtful pause, and the sound of the cupboard door closing.

“Pancakes are nice,” he hums out loud to no one in particular, as he leaves the kitchen.

Jongin glances at Bumhyeon out of the corner of his eye under the pretence of taking a swig of canned coffee- the other boy stares ahead at the game on his screen, unheeding.

It’s a botlane thing, Jongin supposes, that he knows Bumhyeon had heard him.)

*

It isn’t often that Jongin goes out by himself.

Practice already keeps him in the house for a majority of the day, and his mother firmly insists on having him in sight whenever he goes home during the breaks, so the times he does get to go out on his own or with friends are few and far between.

This one’s a short, unofficial jaunt, out to a convenience store that’s a little further from the one they usually frequent, just an opportunity to get a breath of fresh air and walk the agitation out of his bones. He even detours to scope out the ramen restaurant Bontaek had mentioned, then takes the long route around to the shop, then walks the long way to the convenience store, drawing his outer jacket close when the night wind blows.

It’s almost an hour before he gets back, loosely holding a plastic bag with chocolate ice cream cones for Dongwoo and Boseong (they’d whined, the little brats), some gum for Bontaek (he still likes that god-awful blueberry flavour- some things really don’t change, Jongin supposes), a breezer for Youngjun (at least it’s not beer, hyung, I have class, he’d said seriously when making the request) and a pack of Bumhyeon’s usual painkillers.

Somewhere between toeing his shoes off and wondering when he’d become a maid for this house of noisy kids, Jongin hears the dull _clink_ of stainless steel from the kitchen.

His heart flip-flops in his chest, and he takes one step forward, then another- most of the chairs in the PC room are empty, Boseong scuttling away from the room. A savoury sweet scent clings lightly to the air, and warm voices are ebbing quietly into the hallway-…

Jongin barely remembers leaving the plastic bag on the table so the ice creams melt by the time Dongwoo finds them, and Boseong later gets sticky cream all over his hands trying to save them by tossing them in the freezer. He barely hears Youngjun inviting Bontaek over, sidestepping Jongin neatly where he stands, a frozen obstruction in the living room.

He steps into the kitchen and hears Dongwoo whining because his fingers are burnt, sees Boseong hovering hopefully by the stove, a fork held loosely at his side, notices Bontaek passing by nonchalantly, peering over at whatever’s cooking, and Youngjun laughing while he runs cold water over Dongwoo’s fingers.

And at the calm epicentre of the chaos is Bumhyeon, _Bumhyeon,_ chastising their jungler for being overeager, keeping an eagle eye on the pancake he’s frying, and at that moment the warped, dusty picture of the home in Jongin’s heart seems to right itself, the cracks in the glass melting and gluing together, smudged faces coming into focus until they’re smiling, beaming, just like Jongin is.

He stands there, trying to believe what’s happening, until the support catches his eye, and glances away, caught somewhere between embarrassment and carefully buried excitement.

“Hey,” but like always, it’s Bumhyeon who says it first, quietly, warmly, like an invitation, and Boseong and Youngjun seem to part for him naturally, the older midlaner still arguing with Dongwoo about washing his fingers.

Jongin gravitates towards him naturally, like in the dream he’s never dared to think about in the months leading to this moment, fits next to him like two pieces of a puzzle, or a broken heart. “Hey,” he replies, half-breathlessly, arm coming to rest against Bumhyeon’s back.

“You-…” the older man starts, voice almost drowned by the noise as Youngjun manages to drag Bontaek into the argument beside them, thoughts and emotions making a rush from his head and heart to his mouth and getting mixed up in his throat. “You’re back.”

It’s two words to conclude an entire conversation they never had, that would make no sense spoken on their own as they are now, but it’s okay, because Bumhyeon gets it anyway.

“Welcome home?” the support says faintly, voice tentative and soft like a hug, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a second before Bumhyeon’s sliding the pancake onto Boseong’s waiting plate, and the midlaner sprints out of the kitchen with his prize before Dongwoo can catch up to him.

“Home,” Jongin repeats quietly, barely understanding what he's saying, with a weak chuckle. The atmosphere shifts, as he feels the gentle warmth of Bumhyeon leaning into him ever so slightly, like a lost ship finally returning to a waiting dock.

He knows it isn’t much, but in the eye of the storm in their heads and their hearts, for the moment, at least-…

It can feel like they never left.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the multitude of tweets of gorilla cooking for his rox family, in particular bibimbap and pancakes (and the interview where he said he would cook for them before they hired someone T_T) \o/ thanks to andrea for betaing, please sleep more ;; and thanks to my adc ray for existing, hope you have a great birthday (and that this fic was okay ;A;), enjoy old age \o/ ily ^.^
> 
> for the fic itself, written as i was inwardly despairing over the loss of a perfect family, till it occurred to me i might just be looking at things the wrong way. here's to a hope for lz's success in lck spring '17? ;; yep~


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